How to Compress AVI Files in Mac/Win (Windows 8 included)

A large AVI file or some big AVI files may often give you trouble. Their relatively fatter bodies, compared with other multimedia format, often contributes a lot in occupying our disk space, which result in lower and lower running speed of our computer. Moreover, it also causes problem when we want to share our favorite AVI movies on YouTube or Twitter. Is there any way to compress AVI files in Windows? Sure, please follow this article. (Note that, the Mac version lets you compress AVI Mac.)

Part 1: Solutions to compress AVI files

An old idea is to compress AVI files with some standard compress utilities like pkzip or .rar files. However, the result is less satisfactory, let's try something new.

Solution 1: convert your old AVI files to new AVI files or other formats like MP4, MKV, M4V files. With the new decoding and encoding skills, it will render smaller size comparatively.

Solution 3: reset the parameters: you can down the frame rate, bit rate, resolution, etc to cut the size down greatly.

Luckily, this all-in-one video converter (Windows 8 supported) can achieve all above functions. It can convert your original AVI files to virtually all other formats with great compatibility. With its batch conversion ability and built-in editing tools, you can compress AVI files at your fingertips. Here comes a detailed instruction in Windows. (For Mac users, you can also download the AVI compressor Mac here.)

Part 2: A step-by-step guide to compress AVI files

Preparation: Download this video converter, and install. Two versions are available (Mac version and Windows version (Windows 8 included), share the same feature), and here we'll take windows version as an example.

Step 1: Load your AVI files to this AVI compression software

Install and run this AVI compressor, drag & drop AVI files to the main interface, or go to the Menu bar and choose "Convert" -> "Add Files" to load your AVI files. You can add a couple of AVI files and do batch conversion to save your time greatly.

Step 2: Compress your AVI files by trimming or cropping (Optional)

Compress AVI files by trimming: Go to Edit->Trim. And there is one way available. Drag the slide bar to move front and back. When come across the right position, click the scissor-like button to split your original video and you're done. Then click OK to return to the main interface.

Compress AVI files by cropping: Go to "Edit" button on each video item bar, and then choose "Crop" from the pop-up edit window.

Step 3: Select the output format

Click the format icon in the "Output Format" pane to open the dropdown list and select AVI, or MKV, MP4, M4V, FLV, etc. from "Format">"Video"

Go to gear-like "Settings" button to set parameters for both audio and video, including resolution, frame rate, encoder, bitrates, etc. This way can cut down your AVI size a lot.

Step 4: Start Compressing AVI files now

Click "Convert" and let this smart video converter (Windows 8 supported) do the rest for you. If you don't want to wait around during conversion, you can let it run in the background. That's all. Great job!